The Kiss of Death
by I'mthefifthmarauder
Summary: James Potter gets a letter during breakfast that causes him to rise from his seat and leave the Great Hall without a word to his friends. Curious, Lily decides to go find him, and she discovers that there is more to James then Quidditch, girls, and ruffled hair. One-Shot.


James laughed with his friends as they sat down for breakfast. He picked a piece of toast from the table, spread marmalade over it, and was about to take a bite, when the morning post flew in. A large tawny owl James didn't recognize landed in front of him and held out a leg. He set down his toast and untied the scroll. He unrolled it and read the letter. He stood up so suddenly, he moved the whole bench.

"Prongs, mate, you alright?" Sirius asked starring in confused concern at his best friend. James untangled himself from the bench in an ungraceful way that almost made him as angry as the now crumpled letter in his hand. He ignored his friends and started walking briskly toward the door. "Prongs? James! Where—where are you going?" James gritted his teeth, trying to reign in his emotions. He hoped they wouldn't follow him. He could hear Sirius and Remus bickering. Remus kept pulling Sirius back to the bench. Brief appreciation flitted through James chest, then he reached the door of the Great Hall, blinking back the tears that were pooling in his eyes. He turned around a corner, and broke into a run. He barely thought about where he was going, and he ended up in a very distant corner of the castle. He had only been here on two other occasions.

It was a large open, circular space, the cool morning breeze was blowing gently through the open windows. He fell against the edge of one, and leaned out, so that the window sill was pressed into his stomach. His hands were clutched at the edge too, head bowed. It was then that he could no longer stand it. He broke, allowing hot tears to slip down his cheeks. Each breath was a shaky struggle.

Lily watched James get up walk down the hall. He had lost some of his normally arrogant, overconfident attitude. She hesitated on the verge of calling his name, but he had not answered the call of his closest friends, she doubted he would answer even to her. She waited several minutes after he had retreated out the door, trying to focus on her half-eaten breakfast. But soon she couldn't help it. She gathered up her things and left the Great Hall.

Lily didn't know where James had gone, why he had left or even why she wanted to find him. Of all the people James would open up to when he was upset, she was one of the last. Sure, he liked him, but in her eyes he was just being arrogantly impressive towards her, although she had to admit, he seemed to have cleaned up his act a little bit. Less arrogant, less I'm-going-to-hex-you-because-you're-here.

The last place James was likely to be was the Common Room. Even with almost everyone at breakfast, there was bound to be a couple stragglers, or people who had already finished or hadn't gone to breakfast at all. The lake or the Quidditch Pitch were possibilities, although some people liked to take their breakfast outside, especially on as beautiful a day as it was today. The Quidditch Pitch was probably the first place anyone would search for James. She scratched both places off the list. The next step would be to check everywhere in the school, and that would both be pointless and take forever.

As she thought to herself, Lily found her feet taking her on a familiar path, to a place she had often haunted throughout her years at Hogwarts. It was in one of the smaller towers, and it was far away from everything. The perfect place to sit in silence and think. During their O.W.L.s in fifth year she would come up here to study, away from the mayhem in the Common Room, and most of all, away from… well the very person she was looking for. Lily suddenly stopped, because that person was leaning, hunched over the window sill, his shoulder's shaking.

"James?" She whispered, not sure he could hear her. "James, what's wrong?" Louder. She walked over to him, raising and arm to drape over his shoulder. She stopped herself the second before, and then, analyzing the situation, let her arm wrap around him, squeezing gently. That was when she noticed the crumpled ball of parchment in James' hand. The letter he had received at breakfast. With her free hand, Lily touched James' fingers, gently asking for permission to take the note. James relaxed his grip on the paper, and Lily pulled it carefully from beneath his hand, opening it to read what it said. As she read, her hand that was draped loosely around his shoulders rose up to cover her mouth, which had dropped open in shock.

"Oh, my God, James, I'm so sorry." James' knuckles were slowly going whiter against the window.

"It's okay." His voice was raspy from constant, uneven breaths through his mouth. James had been crying. Further evidence was revealed when James turned from the window and looked at her. His face was streaked with dried tears, and his eyes were slightly blood-shot behind his glasses. They looked at each other for a minute or two in awkward silence. For Lily, his eyes held a deeper level of feeling that she had never seen in him before: real human emotion. To James, Lily was finally submitting herself to a feeling she may have had for a while. Caring for James. A concern for his well-being. Just as three minutes passed, both seemed to realize what the other was thinking, and without a word exchanged, the two had their lips pressed together. Lily's arms wrapped around James' neck, his brought her in closer from the shoulders, pulling them closer then should have been physically possible.

The parchment letter was whipped away by the wind.


End file.
